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Kochs brothers' plan for 2012: raise $88 million

Charles and David Koch are worth a reported $21.5 billion each. | Reuters

The conferences, which are sponsored by Koch Industries, bring together roughly 150 wealthy conservative business titans or their representatives to hear presentations from handpicked Republican politicians and thought leaders, as well as the heads of conservative groups hoping to secure big checks to fund their nonprofits.

At the most recent summit, held in January at a Rancho Mirage, Calif., resort, the Kochs and their invited donors pledged to contribute $49 million toward an $88-million budget goal for policy and political projects planned for the 2012 election cycle, which were sketched out at the conference, according to a source with knowledge of the summit.

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To put that in perspective, the twin political groups conceived by Rove and Gillespie – Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies and American Crossroads — raised $70 million for their efforts in the 2010 midterm campaign, during which they were among the most active of the independent political operators.

Unlike the fundraising for those groups — and most political nonprofits, for that matter — most of the donations pledged at the Koch summits goes into a pool, which typically include a mix of cash from invitees as well as a healthy share from the Koch brothers themselves. The brothers’ political advisers distribute the money at their discretion to political and policy groups featured at their conferences.

Groups with tighter Koch ties tend to reap more money from the pool than others, according to sources familiar with the Kochs’ philanthropy and meetings, one of whom said the Koch brothers typically invited a handful of groups less closely linked to them “to create an illusion of spreading the wealth.”

The Kochs swear summit attendees to secrecy and few will talk publicly about the meetings or the brothers’ philanthropy for fear of jeopardizing relationships with — and potentially funding from — the Kochs, who have a reputation in conservative circles for retaliating against allies and former allies deemed insufficiently loyal.

Technically, the Kochs don’t control any groups, rather they exert significant influence through their contributions, board positions and patronage of the leaders of outfits that have been prominently featured at their donor conferences, such as Americans for Prosperity and Themis, a fledgling voter micro-targeting initiative spearheaded by former Koch staffer Karl Crow that in some ways seems designed to compete with an effort launched last year by the Rove and Gillespie-backed Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies.

Sean Noble, another top Koch operative, has been hired by Americans for Limited Government, another group that sources say received donations from Koch conference attendees for its efforts to attack Democrats during the 2010 midterm campaign.

Bill Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government, said he met Noble, a former House chief of staff who now runs his own consulting shop, during the effort to stop the Democratic health care overhaul from passing into law. He said he did not know whether sought contributions from the Koch conference, but did say his group did not get any direct donations from the Kochs or their company.

“They’ve been aggressive in their business, and they’re going to be aggressive in their politics,” Wilson said. “They know what they want and what they believe, and they move aggressively to advance those beliefs. You didn’t build that size of a business, and you can’t be that successful, unless you’re decisive — and they’re decisive.”

It’s difficult to determine how much of their own money the Kochs have directed or contributed to political efforts in recent years because most of the groups to which they’ve steered cash don’t have to report their donors, or even most details of their political spending.

Absurd. The Koch brothers and George Soros are both huge threats to democracy and can spend their endless piles of money to drown out the voices of average citizens. Time to reign in the elites on both sides. No more union or corporate money in politics.

Erickson has spoken at events organized by the Kochs’ primary political vehicle, a non-profit group called Americans for Prosperity, which he called “a very worthwhile organization,” but he said the Kochs “need to broaden the diversity of their grassroots apparatus. … People want to get in on the action and have a hard time getting in on the action.”

The conferences, which are sponsored by Koch Industries, bring together roughly 150 wealthy conservative business titans or their representatives to hear presentations from hand-picked Republican politicians and thought leaders,

Is there an "organized" attempt by America's State/Democrat Run MSM to defund the GOP by going after their contributors?

Maybe POLITCO can shed some light on the Big Donors for the DNC and maybe a story or two on how our Public Unions blew over $100 million in the November 2010 elections and are now laying off "workers" who could have used that $100 million that was blown.......

$88 BILLION from the Trust-Fund Babies of The John Birch Society of bigots and racists.

Nice to see that the Koch racists are admitting what the teabaggers didn't have the Manpant to admit themselves. That they are bought, bussed, organized, trained and USED by the racist John Birchers, who are the 3rd biggest out-sourcers in the country, of Americans jobs!!!!!

Obama political aides have stressed that they’d like any Democratic spending efforts to disclose donors.

By Ken Timmerman

What do Bart Simpson, Family Guy, Daffy Duck, King Kong, O.J. Simpson, and Raela Odinga have in common?

All are celebrities; and with the exception of Odinga and O.J. Simpson, they also are fictional characters. And yet, all of them gave money earlier this month to the campaign of Barack Obama, without any apparent effort by the campaign to screen them out as suspect donors.

The Obama fundraising machine may owe its sensational success in part to a relaxation of standard online merchant security practices, which has allowed illegal donations from foreign donors and from unknown individuals using anonymous “gift” cards, industry analysts and a confidential informant tell Newsmax.

An ongoing Newsmax investigation into the Obama campaign’s finance reports has exposed multiple instances of campaign finance violations and has been cited in a formal complaint to the Federal Election Commission filed by the Republican National Committee on Oct. 6.

Though many of the known violations include donations in excess of the $2,300 per election limit on individual contributions and contributions from foreign nationals, the extent of the amount of fraud is hidden because of a loophole in federal election law.

Campaigns are not required to disclose contributors who donate less than $200 — and Obama’s campaign refuses to release their names, addresses, and donation amounts. Obama has collected a staggering $603.2 million. Most of the money — $543.3 million — has come from individual contributors, half of it from “small” donors Obama won’t disclose.

The Obama campaign has turned a blind eye to the possibility of donor fraud. Reportedly, during the heated primary battle with Hillary Clinton, the Obama campaign “turned off” many of the security features on its online donor page, allowing any person with a valid credit card number to donate using any name or address.

Typically, card merchants require a cardholder’s name to match critical personal details, such as an address or, at the least, a ZIP code.

Though in recent months the Obama campaign has tightened up security and restored some of the security features used by merchants to weed out fraud, it still has left open easy ways for potential credit card fraud, including techniques similar to those employed by terrorists and drug traffickers to launder illicit funds.

Maybe POLITCO can shed some light on the Big Donors for the DNC and maybe a story or two on how our Public Unions blew over $100 million in the November 2010 elections and are now laying off "workers" who could have used that $100 million that was blown.......

I would like to read this long sad story. Maybe they could do a sideline as to why the unions/Obummer are holding up three free trade agreements (S. Korea, Columbia, and Panama) that would create jobs here????

Koch Heads are nothing about 'free enterprise", "liberty", or "freedom", it's all about who's going to line their pockets with more dollars.

It might have been Uncle Joe Stalin in the past or it might be Middle East patrons now, socialized public land rights to cut down on the cheap for more paper products, polluting our air and streams so that they can make a buck without cleaning up after themselves or ensuring eminent domain proceeds "as is" without restriction on their precious pipelines. As they use to say in the good old days "Just Follow The Money".